Tuesday, July 24, 2007

The demolition of the old, old Northern Store in Salluit took place yesterday. It was raining and blustery and the darkness of the day somehow seemed necessary as we watched the destruction of a community landmark. This was the oldest building in town and had originally been located on Wolstenholm Island, way out in Hudson’s Straight. From what I hear it was moved here when the Hudson’s Bay Company relocated to the mainland about 70 years ago. At that point in history these communities were visited once annually by supply ships, which carried everything needed to survive another year. Even though the Inuit had survived quite nicely without our interference for thousands of years us outsiders needed more than was locally available in order to survive in this climate. Other than local foods available to the hunters everything from tea, needles, cloth, pots and pans and everything else that we would take for granted had to be brought in by annual supply ship. That included only getting your mail once a year, so don’t complain any more about Canada Post service!

It was a sad day indeed as 70+ years of history was reduced to rubble in less than 15 minutes but as a community elder reminded me... "The old must make way for the young."

Sunday, July 22, 2007

I've watched at least 10,000 pass by so far and I can see at least 2,000+ out of my kitchen window right now. Sure wish I had a decent camera. The hills in the distance are alive and moving with line after line of caribou following each other up river and they just keep on coming...

Actually I'm not sure it's the main herd at all and it's more likely just because I've never seen this many at one time before and I'm getting excited over an offshoot. I have no idea how many thousands have passed by already this morning but I've been watching them for about 3 hours now and there is no end to the chain of them at one end or the other. Unfortunately my camera just doesn't have the megapixels to take a proper photo and it's also raining, but if I look up the river to the right the hills are just covered with caribou moving southward. If I look left to the north and the mouth of the fjord there is still a steady line of them coming. It would be nice if they would come down from the top of the mountains to where I could get a better photo for you and maybe they will later today. I have no words to describe it right now but I feel priviledged and very lucky to be able to witness something that I have only read about before.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

They tell me there were about 1,200 altogether but I only saw a hundred or so myself, and these were a couple hundred yards away. The caribou are skitish this year and I realized why when I saw some idiots chasing them on Honda's tonight.

Well, the site is being prepared for the new Northern Store at Salluit. The old, old store that was moved to this location from Wolstenholm Island in Hudson’s Straight 50 or 60 years ago has been gutted along with half of our heated warehouse space. The reason for that is because our land area is limited and these buildings will have to come down to make room for the new plant. The electrician arrived yesterday and he’s already got two of the 4 panel boxes moved. After we close today we’ll cut power to the entire building and he’ll start on the preparation for relocating the main panel box. There is a power pole that will have to be relocated outside also and this will be a problem as all the power for the store, warehouses and dwellings comes off this one location.

Our ship with the materials for the new store itself will not be here before the 28th. They’ve had a lot of trouble with ice and only got away from Iqaluit a couple nights ago. Now he has to make 4 or 5 stops before he gets here and that’s OK as it just gives us that much more time to get the pad for the new building ready. The exciting and sad part will be early this coming week when the old buildings go under the bulldozer. There is a lot of history in one of those buildings but the old have to make room for the new, right?

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Two boats in so far this summer. First was a tanker bringing in heating oil and gasoline to take the town through next winter and the second was a freighter. I'm not sure what he had on for who yet but it wasn't ours anyway. Sorry about the quality of the photos but these guys anchor about a half mile out and my cheap little camera has problems at that distance.

Monday, July 09, 2007

I’ve got an update on that crew of tourists that I was on the plane with last week. You may recall that they were supposed to join their tour in Kuujjuaq but there was too much ice at that location for the ship to get in and pick them up. So, First Air took them on to where the ship was waiting for them in Iqaluit but it seems that they also had problems at that location as the ice was also too thick for the ship to get into port. I’m told that the backup plan had been to take the passengers to and from their boat by snowmobile and sled but the ice which was too thick for the ship was just a little bit too thin for safety with ski-doos and komotiks. They ended up using Zodiac inflatable boats to shuttle the people a few at a time between the ship and the shoreline a few miles down the coast from Iqaluit, at a place called Apex. What an adventure for this group from France and I hope they appreciated the extra effort that the tour company made for them. This is just another case of life in the north never being boring or routine and having to adapt and change plans regularly in order to make things work.

As a further note to this our own ship with the new store onboard which was supposed to be here on the 18th has now been delayed. The “Umiuvat” arrived in Iqaluit several days ago but was unable to offload due to the heavy ice. It wasted a couple days hoping the winds would change and blow the ice offshore, but they finally gave up and sailed out to its next port-of-call late last night. She is now scheduled to arrive here in Salluit on the 20th or 21st and will go back to attempt Iqaluit on it’s way back to Montreal later on.

Global warming does exist and is getting worse but this sure has been a bad year for late ice so far. Even the caribou are running late as they were all over hills a month earlier than this last year but there have only been a couple around so far and we're well into July. The world is changing and we have to adapt and learn to take better control of what's going on around us.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Down in Kuujjuaq only about 45 minutes late as we'd had a small tailwind headed north. The people who were expecting to join their cruise in Kuujjuaq were treated to an extra plane ride. The ice in the bay here hasn't cleared enough for the ship to get in so they are continuing on to Iqaluit to set sail from there. I'll see them all again next week when their tour gets to Salluit.

My days journey continued north with stops in Tasiujaq, Aupaluk, Kangirsuk, Quaqtaq, Kangiqsujuaq and finally into Salluit around 6:00pm. Mostly an uneventful day except for a few caribou running along beside the airstrip in Aupaluk. By the way, Tasiujaq actually has the highest tides in the world and beats the Bay of Fundy by several feet and that's a fact!

So, that's all for today. Early to bed and then back to work full time tomorrow. If anything interesting happens I'll let you know!

I guess I could write about how excited I am to be off on another trip... but that would be a lie. It's going to be great to be back in Salluit again with some of the nicest people you'll ever meet, the mountains, caribou and the fjord. But I have to be honest and say that I'd rather be at my Manitoulin "Haven" working around the yard and sitting on my deck.

I won't actually get to upload this until later, but at the moment of writing I'm sitting in seat 23A on a First Air 727 in Montreal waiting for the last people to board so we can get underway. (Have I ever shown you the First Air tail designs?)

It's a full flight this morning with the aircraft in full 200+/- passenger configuration. It's not usually so busy but listening to the conversations around me I get the impression that many are headed to connect with Cruise North for one of their excursions up Baffin Island. Speaking of connections I've got one to make with Air Inuit north out of Kuujjuaq and we're now 50 minutes late in leaving our gate at PET Airport. No matter I guess as the owners of First Air are also the owners of Air Inuit and one usually waits for the other. Hey, we're pushing back... I'll continue later

As “Canada’s 12th Wonder” Manitoulin Island holds a number of Canadian and world distinctions that we encourage you to explore when you visit our area.
This blog is a collection of personal ramblings, comments and observations gathered first while traveling around the country for The North West Company and now during my retirement years on Manitoulin Island as an Independent Associate with Watkins. Feel free to comment, I thank you for stopping by and hope to hear from you soon!